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CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY, Misamis Oriental: President
Gloria Arroyo is expected to sign an executive order that will grant
a 10-percent increase in the salaries of the country’s more than
one million state workers, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita
announced Wednesday.
Ermita said President Arroyo
would sign the order this afternoon in time for the celebration of
Labor Day, May 1, when she returns to Manila from this province
where she was a guest at the Second Strong Republic Nautical Highway
Conference.
The President, the Executive
Secretary said, has instructed Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr.
to flesh out the details of the increase, to take effect on July 1.
The executive order is similar to
the one that Mrs. Arroyo issued last year when she also granted a
10-percent increase in the basic salaries of employees in the
national government and a P1,200 raise in the monthly subsistence
and other allowances of policemen, soldiers and other uniformed
personnel.
The Budget department said the
salary increase for the 898,848 national government employees will
cost the government P9.216 billion. The increment for soldiers,
policemen, firemen, jail guards and Coast Guard personnel for the
same period will reach P2.84 billion, it added.
Workers deserve more
While he acknowledges the
government’s show of concern, Sen. Mar Roxas 2nd said he wants
something more intangible for workers.
“Other than the usual promises
of assistance and modest benefits, the best gifts on Labor Day are
authentic leadership and hope for the nation during these extremely
stressful and difficult times,” Roxas said in a statement. He
pointed to food shortages and soaring oil prices.
Roxas proposed safety nets for
minimum-wage earners and underemployed and jobless Filipinos and a
rethinking by the government of the continued imposition of the
12-percent expanded value-added tax.
He also batted for a four-day
workweek to give government employees a long weekend to develop
micro enterprises or spend the time with their families.
Roxas took a swipe at the Arroyo
administration.
“What our workers don’t need
is a government that for some reason is unable to speak the truth
about the current rice, food and oil crises, thus adding to the
confusion and anxieties of our people and narrowing their options to
short-lived politically-driven solutions.” He has long called on
the government to admit to such crises.
Private sector workers
Unlike the state employees,
workers in the private sector will not get any wage increase this
Labor Day, an official from Department of Labor and Employment said
also Wednesday.
“There’s no wage increase for
workers this Labor Day,” said Ciriaco Lagunzad 3rd, executive
director of the National Wages and Productivity Commission.
During a press conference at the
commission’s office, Lagunzad explained that the Regional Wage
Boards need more time to study any petitions for a wage increase.
Besides, he said, the boards, first, will have to conduct public
hearings on petitions filed before them.
“[Maybe] by late May or early
June, the Regional Wage Boards would release their decision [on]
wage-hike petitions,” Lagunzad added.
He explained that based on rules
on minimum-wage fixing, the wage boards have at least 30 days after
the end of public hearings to issue a wage order.
During a meeting last week,
majority of the regional boards agreed to start today sectoral
consultations on petitions for wage increase.
Kilusang Mayo Uno (May First
Movement) has filed a petition seeking a P125 across-the-board wage
increase and Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, P60.
Instead of a wage increase, the
Labor department is preparing a package of benefits for workers that
would include tax exemptions.
Workers’ productivity has
“not dramatically improved” in the last 15 years, Lagunzad said
at the sidelines of the launching of the commission’s e-Learning
Center.
The center, which is open to the
public, aims to expand the target scope of beneficiaries in
promoting and enhancing practical and adaptive learning experience.
May 1 protests
Bracing for May Day workers’
rallies, the Philippine National Police (PNP) will place the entire
force under heightened alert starting at 8 a.m. of Thursday to
ensure that the Labor Day celebration will turn out to be
uneventful.
“The PNP joins the entire
nation in paying tribute to the Filipino labor force for providing
the muscle to move the country forward. It is our duty as police
officers to make this day peaceful and significant,” the national
police chief Avelino Razon Jr. said in a statement.
Police commanders, though, may
upgrade the heightened alert status if warranted.
They said their job is not to
prevent people from holding public assemblies, but to enforce the
law and to remind demonstrators of their responsibilities when
taking to the streets.
Thousands of protesters are
expected to troop to Mendiola Bridge (now Don Chino Roces Bridge)
today as two labor groups are scheduled to hold protest rallies
there.
The Manila city government on
Tuesday approved a permit that will allow two militant groups to
hold protests near the bridge until 6 p.m.
Acting Manila Mayor Isko Moreno
identified the two groups as Kilusang Mayo Uno and Partidong
Manggagawa.
Violent dispersal of
demonstrators must be avoided as much as possible, Moreno said
during a meeting with leaders of militant organizations and police
officials led by Chief Supt. Geary Barias, National Capital Region
police commander, and Roberto Rosales, Manila Police District
director.
The acting mayor stressed that in
line with Mayor Alfredo Lim’s repeated calls, “the
law-enforcement side should not allow themselves to be affected by
heckling, cursing and the like since they go with the job” during
protest actions.
Angelo S. Samonte, Anthony
Vargas, Jefferson Antiporda and Rommel C. Lontayao
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